Abramelin the Mage is one of the many "house-hold names" in occultism,
though in reality very little is actually known about the man himself.
What we know of him comes to us through a medieval manuscript preserved
in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris. This text
was a French copy from the 17th or 18th century of the original Hebrew
manuscript. "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage,
as delivered by Abraham the Jew unto his son Lamech, A.D. 1458," as the
manuscript was titled, detailed the complete system of magick of an Egyptian
sage by the name of Abramelin. It was translated into English by
S.L. MacGregor Mathers of the Golden Dawn.

The author of this book, Abraham of Würzburg, was a Qabalist and
connoisseur of magickal practices. In accordance with tradition,
Abraham's eldest son received the Holy Qabalah. Wanting his younger
son to also "...be able to admire, to consider, and to enjoy the marvels
of the Lord," Abraham gave this book to Lamech when he felt he was old
enough.

In his introduction, Abraham narrates to his son the story of how he
came upon the great magician in a small town on the banks of the Nile river.
His interest in various magickal practices had led him on a tour of the
civilized world, seeking out magicians and Qabalists, taking what he could
learn from each.

After describing how he came to learn the Sacred Magic of Abramelin,
Abraham proceeds to explain in great detail the entire necessary operation,
from the selection of an appropriate place, to the summoning of various
spirits and demons to do the bidding of the magician. The book carefully
details the qualifications necessary to become a magician, protections,
asceticisms, purifications, evocations, vestments and prayers.

The goal of paramount importance to the operation is the invocation,
or knowledge and conversation, of the Holy Guardian Angel. This is
the first written use of this term, which is now extremely common in modern
occult literature. The Holy Guardian Angel, considered by many modern
magicians to be the "Higher Self" or Augoeides, assists the magician
through the remainder of the operation. The next step of the process
is to evoke the denizens of hell, and force their allegiance and submission
to the magician. Once the magician has mastered the evocation of
good and evil spirits, commanding those spirits to do his will, and overcoming
rebellious spirits, he can begin putting the spirits to work.

The last part of the book gives specific instructions for clairvoyance,
divining metals and treasure, warding off evil magick, healing illness,
levitation, transportation, making oneself invisible, creating illusions,
reading minds, and many various powers and magicks, both white and black,
which the magician may now utilize.

The "Abramelin operation," as it is often called, in reality consists
of two seperate operations. The first operation, the attainment of
knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, is the perfection
and purification of the Self. It opens the path of communication
between man and Divine. In the second operation the evil demons,
who are sometimes considered the magician's "lower Self" or negative character
traits, are conquered and commanded to do the magician's bidding by force
of will and magick. This second operation would therefore fall into
the category of medieval magick called goetia.

It should be noted that while the two processes are essentially two
different formulas, this has only been noted for the sake of analysing
the operation. The knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian
Angel is an essential prerequisite to the evocation of the evil spirits,
unless the magician should desire to become enslaved to those demons which
it was his initial desire to command.

It is difficult to be sure how much of this system of magick was directly
from Abramelin, and how much was embellished or added to by Abraham's extensive
knowledge of the Qabalah, or by the French copyist's knowledge (or lack
thereof) of the magickal processes detailed within the book. However,
such considerations are for the historian, not for the magician.
Despite a certain amount of dogmatism on the part of the author, an extremely
viable method for attaining knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian
Angel is presented therein. Due to this dogmatism and the general
superstitious nature of many medieval grimoires, many magicians have rewritten
the Abramelin operation, maintaining the same core formula and removing
extraneous aspects. Most notable of these rewrites is Aleister Crowley's
Liber
Samekh.

The Egyptian mage known as Abramelin will remain a mysterious figure
in history, but the legacy of his system of magick will continue to live
on for a long time to come.

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